


my heart is a foreigner

by tattooedsiren



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Post 3a, Post-Season/Series 03A
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattooedsiren/pseuds/tattooedsiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles can feel the darkness around his heart dragging him down. He's surrounded by people but he's never felt more alone. He feels like he's drowning, paralyzed in a pool of water, only this time there's no Derek to return the favor and keep him afloat.<br/>He keeps looking for Derek, despite how futile it seems. Because sometimes, when he's buried deep in research, or scrolling through the memories deep in his mind and trying to find some clue as to where they might've gone, it's the only time he feels like his old self. He doesn't even know if he's still searching because he still feels that connection to Derek, that tentative and ephemeral bond that neither acknowledged, or because he just wants to feel like himself again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart is a foreigner

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Grade 8 by Ed Sheeran. Much love to smartalli for the beta.

He knows it's stupid. He knows he shouldn't care. He knows he should just let it go, that he shouldn't be holding on so tight to begin with.

But Stiles still can't help waiting for Derek to come back.

No one else seems to care too much. Scott's time is split between school and sessions with Deaton. Stiles doesn't begrudge him this at all. Scott's making an effort to be all he can be, and Stiles has a feeling that sooner rather than later they'll need to reap the benefits of Scott's applied learning. Isaac is firmly ensconced in Scott's pack now, and maybe the multiple losses of Erica and Boyd and Derek in quick succession have numbed him to the loss, but the one time Stiles asked him about Derek leaving, Isaac simply shrugged and changed the topic. Allison and Lydia both have their complicated relationships with Derek and the Hale family as a whole, so he knows they're not sorry to see the back of him. Peter would care, but Peter took off not long after Derek and Cora, and even if he was still around, Stiles wouldn't be going to him anyway.

Stiles shouldn't care. Intellectually, he knows this. He should be focusing on school, on his dad, on his friends. And for the most part he's able to not think about Derek, not worry about him, not wonder why he left and where he is now. But late at night, when the house is quiet and still and he's left alone with his thoughts, he can't help but wonder.

It's not that he doesn't try to find Derek himself. He does. He must've called Derek and Cora's cells a dozen times, but they always rang through, until finally he got a monotonous message telling him the number had been disconnected. He'd emailed too, but never got any replies. He put his not inconsiderable detective skills to good use, combing through the internet and making phone calls and sending emails and maybe, on the odd occasion, misappropriating the resources of the Sherriff's office. 

Still, nothing.

Days turn into weeks which roll into months. Derek never comes home.

Life goes on, in the way it only can in Beacon Hills. Despite Deaton's warnings, it's still a surprise when mythological creatures big and small start flocking to their formerly sleepy town. Every day is a fight, and even with his dad and Melissa and Chris helping to shoulder the burden, it's still a lot, would still be a lot without their children slowly slipping. Stiles can feel the darkness around his heart dragging him down. He's surrounded by people but he's never felt more alone. He feels like he's drowning, paralyzed in a pool of water, only this time there's no Derek to return the favor and keep him afloat.

He keeps looking for Derek, despite how futile it seems. Because sometimes, when he's buried deep in research, or scrolling through the memories deep in his mind and trying to find some clue as to where they might've gone, it's the only time he feels like his old self. He doesn't even know if he's still searching because he still feels that connection to Derek, that tentative and ephemeral bond that neither acknowledged, or because he just wants to feel like himself again.

He starts finding himself at the loft, because when he needs to get out of the house he doesn't really have anywhere else to go. Scott's got enough on his plate without worrying about Stiles too, and as much as he loves his friends (and he does, he would do anything for them, he would kill or die or anything in-between) he can't tell them this. He can't admit that he feels completely lost, adrift and uncertain. So he goes to Derek's and hates himself a little bit more every time he opens the door and hopes, just for a moment, that Derek will be there. He never is, and Stiles doesn't stay long, because it feels too wrong, being here alone.

When Christmas break rolls around, his dad takes Stiles away for a week. John isn't an idiot; he can see the downward descent his son has been on. But what he doesn't know (he can _never_ know) is that the darkness will follow Stiles wherever he goes. Still, Stiles can't deny a change of scenery is nice, even if the whole time they're away he constantly keeps an eye out for a leather jacket and rough stubble. Because he's seen one too many movies and that's what happens, right? You look for someone for months and then bump into them somewhere completely random and ordinary.

Even so, Stiles isn’t surprised when they return home after a week at his uncle's house without ever having bumped into Derek.

With the new year comes a new Stiles. The pack spend New Year's Eve together, watching movies and eating junk food (and not getting drunk because it hardly seemed fair when Scott and Isaac couldn't) and when the midnight bell tolls, he embraces his friends and silently promises to let Derek go.

And unlike all his previous new year's resolutions, Stiles manages to keep this one.

He doesn't try to look for him, stops sending long and rambling emails which never got a reply anyway. He works hard at school, looks after his dad, tries to protect his pack, and gets used to the gaping hole in his chest where hope and potential used to reside.

It's not easy. More than once they've had near misses, and someone will inevitably grumble about Derek having not told them enough (or anything, really) before he left, and Stiles will grimace and nod and agree. And they're right, of course they are. Derek knew more about werewolves and the supernatural than the rest of them put together, and he always kept it to himself, dropping crumbs here and there, usually for his own benefit. He was a bastard in that regard, and Stiles hates him, hates him for leaving, for not telling them enough, for leaving them alone to deal with this, for making Stiles care so much sometimes he feels like he's going to burst from it.

So yeah, Stiles misses him, his stupid deadpans and beard and voice and eyes that apparently contained at least three different colors, and that was on a good day. He misses the gradual build of their relationship, the way they slowly pushed and pulled and gave, growing more and stronger every day. They went from two people who ignored each other at best and actively tried to hurt each other at worst, to something like friends, two people who helped and actively protected each other. 

He wishes that he'd told Derek what his feelings were when he was around (although he supposes that would require him actually knowing what his feelings are, and he doesn't, not really, all he knows is that he feels _something_ for Derek that he doesn't feel for anyone else).

Before he knows it over a year has gone by. He's stopped looking. So when he finally does see Derek, the sheer shock of seeing him again, alive, in person, whole and unharmed, is too much. The surprise probably doesn't help, either. He never expected to run into Derek here of all places. He's only twenty minutes away from Beacon Hills. He's at a park. It's a sunny Saturday morning. It's all too normal. It can't be real.

But then Derek sees him, and it's the most real thing Stiles has experienced. It physically hurts, locking gazes with the older man again. It's only a few seconds, and for all that Stiles wanted to find Derek all these months, he can't deal with this. 

So he turns and walks away.

He can hear Derek calling his name, but he doesn't stop. His head feels fuzzy, his chest hurts, it's all too much. Derek grabs at his arm, and he doesn't even think, just turns and punches Derek across the face. It hurts him more than Derek, because he's just the weak human and Derek's the flawless specimen of werewolf genetics, and when Derek turns to look at him he's shocked.

"What's that for?" Derek asks, like he honestly doesn't know, and if Stiles wasn't so pissed he'd feel sorry for the guy.

"Why the fuck do you think?" Stiles grits out.

He can feel Derek's eyes roaming over his body. There's no telltale nose twitch, but he gets the distinct impression Derek's trying to smell him, trying to figure out the reason for Stiles' appearance. Stiles knows he doesn't look great. He's lost weight, and his skin, which was pale at the best of times, is even whiter now. But if Derek is trying to scent out some kind of illness or disease to explain it, he won't find it. Darkness and depression have no scent. There's no trace to find.

"What happened to you?" Derek asks, and Stiles cannot deal with the concern in Derek's voice. He can't. What happened to him wasn't Derek's fault, but Stiles doesn't think it's a lie to say that Derek's absence exacerbated the darkness around his heart. Not that this was all some fairytale, where the love of a good man could break the evil spell and put all wrongs right again. Nothing could undo what Stiles and Scott and Allison did. But Stiles is also aware enough to know that there's a certain type of love that Allison and Scott have that he doesn't, and it's made a difference. Their darkness is still there, but it comes and goes. For Stiles it's constant, unrelenting, suffocating.

Stiles scoffs. "Why? It's not like you care or anything."

He turns and walks away again. There's no hand on his arm this time, and he thinks it means Derek's letting him go. He gets into the car, and barely has time to take in a deep, chest aching breath before the passenger door opens and Derek slides into the jeep.

Stiles turns to Derek in shock. He wants to yell, to tell Derek to get out, but he just doesn't have the strength.

"Derek, _please_ ," he says, not even sure what it is that he's begging for. A reprieve, maybe. A chance to get his thoughts straight and his heart calm. He feels like he can't breathe, breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."

And oh God he sounds exactly the same. It's somehow harder, hearing that familiar voice. It probably shouldn't be, but it is. His voice _should_ be different. His time away from Beacon Hills and everyone there should've changed him, the way it changed Stiles. 

" _Now_? Now you want to know what's happening?"

It's not a panic attack. Despite how bad everything has been since all this started, he hasn't had a panic attack since he found out that Jennifer had taken all three of their parents. This is just shock. His fingers grip at his jeans, try to grab some of the denim at his thigh, but there isn't enough material to grip and his fingers never gain full purchase. His knuckles are still throbbing from where they collided with the carved marble of Derek's face. 

Everything _hurts_.

The touch of Derek's hand on his startles Stiles. His whole body flails with the shock, and he turns to Derek, wide eyed. Derek's hands are immediately up in a placating gesture, the universal sign for _I won't hurt you_ , and Stiles wonders if that's really true. But still, when Derek keeps his gaze locked as his hand slowly returns to Stiles' thigh, Stiles lets him. 

Derek's fingertips are warm and light on his skin, and the throbbing in his hand slowly ebbs as Derek steals away his pain. He can't help but close his eyes as the sensation rolls over him. He's never actually experienced this before, not even when his injuries were way worse than a bruised knuckle. There never seemed to be the time, or someone offering the gesture, which is probably the more important part. But there is time and a willing participant now, and Stiles still can't believe that the first time he's experiencing this is because of Derek.

But he's still panicking. Stiles would think the calm of having his pain gone, the almost natural high of it all, would mellow him out a bit. But he's getting worse. This shouldn't be real. How is it that he lives in a world where someone can take away physical pain with a simple touch? It's too much, too intimate a gesture after so long apart.

He can't breathe.

Derek picks up his hand, handles it so gingerly. When Stiles finds his hand pressed flat against Derek's chest, right over his heart, he opens his eyes, turns to look at him. Derek has moved in his chair so he's facing Stiles, his own large hand covering Stiles', keeping it safe and secure against his chest, sandwiched between the thin cotton of Derek's tee and the warmth of his hand. Derek's fingers slide into the spaces between his own.

"Can you feel that?" Derek asks, voice low and gentle.

Stiles nods. He can't speak, mouth dry, brain too incoherent to form words. But he can still nod.

"Focus on my heartbeat, Stiles. Okay. Slow and even breaths. Good. Keep going..."

Stiles concentrates as hard as he can. He can feel Derek's heart beat beneath his hand, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and he breathes in, out, in, out, slow and rhythmic. Derek's still looking at him, staring so unabashedly, eyes locked with his. Stiles keeps his gaze, uses it as an anchor, a focal point to keep him in the here and now.

It takes several minutes, seconds that stretch out into eternity, but he can feel his heartbeat calming, his breathing becoming easier. The sun streams into the jeep, everything is so bright, too real. With one last deep inhale, Stiles carefully withdraws his hand, and Derek lets him go.

They sit there for a few moments, quiet, just staring at each other in their close quarters. Derek's going to ask about him again, Stiles just knows it, and he doesn't want to talk about it, not yet, not here. 

"Where have you been?"

Derek looks away briefly. "Around."

Stiles scoffs. "Well that was sufficiently vague."

"I went back to New York, but it didn't feel like home, not like it used to. So I came back to California. I've basically been trekking up and down the state for the last six months."

"You didn't come back to Beacon Hills," Stiles says, an accusation wrapped up in a statement.

"I couldn't," Derek tells him, and the word breaks halfway through, like he honestly believes that he couldn't return home.

And maybe he couldn't. Maybe he tried, but couldn't force himself past the town limits. Maybe he thought about coming home every day but couldn't find the courage to actually do it. Stiles doesn't know what he's been doing the last year, but then, wasn't that the whole problem to begin with?

"Look, I'm not saying I don't understand you wanting to leave. Because I do, okay? You got fucked over in pretty much every way imaginable. You lost people. You were deceived and used and betrayed. I get wanting to bail. But leaving without saying goodbye, or telling us where you were going, or letting us know you were okay... _That_ I have a problem with."

Derek just looks at him, like he's a puzzle he can't solve because there are missing pieces. "You keep saying _us_ , Stiles."

"So?"

"So I know that no one else cared that I left. There were no calls, no emails, no nothing."

"And yet the implication is that you know that _I cared_. And still, nothing."

Derek sighs, seems to deflate before him. Stiles suddenly feels exhausted. It's not even noon, and he just wants to go home to bed and sleep for a year. Maybe if he does, things will make sense when he wakes up again. He collapses back into his seat, looks out the front window to the park. There are kids playing and dogs barking and couples lying together in the sun and some teenagers throwing a Frisbee back and forth. Life's still going on out there, completely normal, blissfully ignorant of everything that makes up Stiles' daily existence. 

"Why do you care that I left?" Derek asks.

"Why do you care what's wrong with me now?" Stiles counters.

Something like realization alights in Derek's face. He's looking at Stiles differently now. Stiles is used to the unique way Derek looks at people, everything from wide eyed wonder to obvious disdain, but this is nothing like that. It's naked, so raw that Stiles can practically see the frayed edges that make up the entirety of Derek's person. 

"I - I thought it was just me," Derek confesses in a whisper. He can't even look at Stiles when he says it, a clear sign of weakness, but Stiles doesn't care. His heartbeat ticks up slightly, and he fervently hopes Derek's too distracted to notice. Because he doesn't want Derek getting off topic. He needs to hear more. "I told myself that it was just me, that it was just proximity and circumstances and every other rationale I could think of."

"You felt it too," Stiles says when Derek doesn't continue.

He nods, finally looking up at Stiles again. 

"A connection," Stiles supplies, because someone has to, and it might as well be him. 

He thought it would be different, saying it out loud, finally acknowledging that something is there. He thought it would change everything, but nothing is different now. It probably doesn't help that he has no idea exactly what this connection is, what it means. Maybe if he knew, then it _would_ have been different.

Derek doesn't respond, but Stiles won't force the issue. So they just sit there together in silence. He can't help it, reaching over and putting his hand over Derek's. Because Derek is right there, the closest he's been in a year, and Stiles doesn't know what's going to happen next. Derek could up and disappear again, could walk away without looking back. Stiles doesn't want him to go, not again, but he can't ask him to stay. Not for him. He wasn't lying when he told Derek he understood why he left. So as much as he wants Derek back, not just for him but for all of them, he'll never ask. He doesn't want to be the one bringing Derek back into a place full of bad memories. He doesn't want Derek to resent him for making him stay. He wants Derek home, but more than that, he wants Derek whole and happy and safe.

It's a surprise, when Derek doesn't pull away, actually tangles the fingers on both their hands into a twisted embrace. Derek's thumb brushes over his index finger, back and forth, and Stiles focuses on the movement for as long as he can.

"I want to come home," Derek says, voice barely above a whisper. "I do. But if I do something bad will happen."

"I'll protect you," Stiles tells him earnestly.

It should be ridiculous, the lowly human with the heart enveloped in darkness saying he'll protect a born werewolf. And maybe it is, but that's not the point. It's the most Stiles can do in this moment. It's the closest he can come to asking Derek to come back with him. It's a promise that even if Derek's right, even if something terrible and irrevocable happens, it won't be the same this time, because Stiles will be there for him. He has Derek's back, always.

The grip on Stiles' fingers tightens. It's infinitesimal, and anyone else might not have noticed, but Stiles can feel every point their skin meets like it's on fire, so in contrast to the ice cold of the rest of his body. There's something racing through his veins, spiralling out from the warmth of Derek's hands through the rest of his body, something he hasn't felt in so long he didn't think he had the capacity for it anymore.

It feels like hope.

"I'm scared, Stiles," Derek admits, and this time it's Stiles who increases his grip on Derek.

"I know," Stiles says. A tear falls down his cheek from unblinking eyes. He keeps his gaze fixed on Derek. "I am too. But we'll get through this. We'll be okay."

Derek's hand reaches over, but stops halfway, hovers in mid-air, like he expected Stiles to stop him anyway. But Stiles doesn't. So Derek reaches over and gently wipes the tear from Stiles' cheek. Stiles doesn't breathe, doesn’t move, can't look away. He can't believe he's on the receiving end of such a gentle and reverent touch. It's been so long that he started to think it was something he'd never have again, that he didn't deserve it. The sweep of Derek's thumb across the arch of his cheek feels like his undoing. His eyes briefly flutter closed and he can feel the lingering touch for a few more moments before it falls away.

"Okay," Derek says, and Stiles opens his eyes and looks at him again. "Okay, let's go home."


End file.
